Battle of Williamsburg yields new dispute over land use

Daily Press

Carson Hudson stops and looks over the land near where the 1862 Battle of… (Jonathon Gruenke, Daily…)

August 18, 2013|By Amanda Kerr, akerr@dailypress.com | 757-247-4733

YORK — Just off the Colonial Parkway in a wooded area near Jones Pond what looks like rugged, undeveloped terrain is really something much more significant.

The large sloping landscape is really the hidden remains of one of the most significant redoubts from the 1862 Battle of Williamsburg during the Civil War. That redoubt and several hundred acres in the area bounded by the Colonial Parkway, Interstate 64 and Penniman Road are at the center of a debate about land use, economic development, property rights and historic preservation.

The two York County properties include 250 acres owned by the Egger family and around 141 acres owned by Anheuser-Busch. Both properties have come under scrutiny over whether they should receive a mixed-use designation for both commercial and residential development in the county's Comprehensive Plan, which lays out land use goals for the county.

The Eggers and Busch executives want the mixed-use designation to make their properties more attractive to developers. Officials from the Colonial National Historical Park and Naval Weapons Station Yorktown have expressed concerns over development there encroaching on their properties. Historic preservationists say they would like to see the land protected.

The Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan this week. Supervisor Chairman Walt Zaremba, whose district includes the Egger and Busch properties, sees the challenge as balancing the issues of encroachment with private property rights and the historic value of the land.

"For me the playing field is level," Zaremba said. "The scales are just about as equal as they can be at this point."

Land use

How much of the Egger and Busch properties should be designated for mixed-use has been a focus of the Planning Commission's discussions in updating the Comprehensive Plan. A mixed-use designation does not confer zoning rights and any mixed-use project on those properties would have to receive a special use permit with approval from the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors. Both the Egger and Busch properties are now zoned for commercial development.

The Egger property has had a mixed-use designation since 2005. Executives with Anheuser-Busch began lobbying last year for a mixed-use designation for their property, which is adjacent to the Egger property, as part of the Comprehensive Plan review.

Busch has a sale agreement for its property with local developer Mid-Atlantic Commercial, which hinges on the property being designated for mixed-use. The Egger property, which is landlocked behind the Busch property with no immediate access to roads or utilities, remains undeveloped.

As part of the Comprehensive Plan review, planning staff initially proposed to shift the mixed-use designation away from the bulk of the Egger property to the Busch property and the nearby Marquis shopping center off Route 199.

In January, Matt Egger, one of several family members who own the Egger property, wrote to York County planners saying the property "would be ideal for development as a master-planned community…probably in conjunction with the development of the Busch property." According to York County planning documents, Egger previously hired Mid-Atlantic as a consultant for his property.

In response to Egger's concerns, the Planning Commission left the mixed-use designation in place and expanded it to include the Busch and Marquis properties. The current proposal involves around 985 acres extending from the Colonial Parkway near Jones Pond to the Route 199/Interstate 64 interchange.

At a recent joint meeting of the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, commissioners said they felt like expanding mixed use across the entire area wasn't a problem.

"It merely grants an opportunity to make a proposal later," said Planning Commissioner Mark Suiter.

Encroachment

Officials with the Navy and Colonial National Historical Park say development on the Busch and Egger properties could be a threat to Naval Weapons Station Yorktown and the Colonial Parkway.

In an interview, Smith said the parkway has a 300-foot buffer on either side of the road that runs the entire length of the 23-mile route from Jamestown to Yorktown. That buffer, Smith said, will prevent any developer from running utilities under the parkway to the Egger property. It's also unlikely the National Park Service would provide a right-of-way to allow access to the property from the parkway.

Another concern for Smith is the effect of storm water runoff on the parkway created by new development.